Phony Benoni: After all these years, here is some more information about the tournament.It was promoted by the <American Chess Bulletin>, edited and published by Hermann Helms. It is first mentioned in ACB, July / August 1938, p. 69:
<"Continental Correspondence Tournament"Entries are invited for a nation-wide Continental Correspondence Chess Tournament along somewhat the same lines as that of 1894, which was sponsored by Walter Penn Shipley of Philadelphia and eventually won by Charles W Phillips of Chicago. It was the forerunner of most of the chess-by-mail activities that have sprung up since. ,,,">
Entries were to be grouped into seven-player sections, with minimal entry fees and prizes. Each section ws a separate tournament, with no plans for advancement or crowning an overall champion. Indeed, Helms expected the whole thing to be over in six months, but general interest kept the competition alive until the mid-1940s after several hundred sections had been organized.
But where did the jubilee bit come in? It doesn't seem to have been part of the original concept, but Helms mentioned something in the introductory article:
<"Incidentally, the time coincides with the completion of of half a century of continuous effort in behalf of chess on the part of the publisher. and this, in a way of speaking, adds a bit of jubilee flavor to the competition.">
This flavor must have appealed to Helms, since by the next issue of ACB (September / October 1938, p. 93) the event was referred to as the "Continental Jubilee Correspondence Tournament" and retained that name thereafter.
And little did anyone now that Helms stil had a quarter-century of "continuous involvement" to go.
Kibitzing
sac: 22.Nf6+
